


Neighbors

by Pircival



Series: An Honest Attempt at Normalcy [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Anxiety, Body Horror, Corpse Desecration, Denial, Gen, Guilt, Head Injury, Horror, Loss of Control, Mild Blood, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, Non-Graphic Violence, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Poisoning, Self-Hatred, Supernatural Elements, Transformation, Vomiting, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27396859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pircival/pseuds/Pircival
Summary: While waiting wasn’t his least liked part of the process, he still heavily disliked it for a few different reasons. For one, he always got bored during it, and often resigned himself to counting ceiling tiles or carpet stains. Another thing about it was the silence. With nothing to do, sometimes for hours on end, the lack of noise or stimulus tended to lend itself to Miachel’s nerves getting the best of him; more than once the anxiety-prone individual had suffered from panic attacks while sitting on the hallway floor. But he persisted, leaning his head against the wall to make it easier to listen in to the happenings of 703.-----For Miachel, it's always nice when he gets to meet a new neighbor. It's just a shame that every meeting always has to end the same way. He can't help it, though. He's just doing what's necessary for him to survive.
Series: An Honest Attempt at Normalcy [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2001379
Kudos: 3





	Neighbors

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there! This piece is a part of a collection of short stories that follow a variety of events surrounding one Miachel Joseph Keighton, a 26-year old office worker who's just trying to do his best with what he's been given. I hope you enjoy! : ]
> 
> _TW: this piece contains moderate gore, body horror, minor character death, and a brief statement about a character throwing up. if you believe that any of these topics could be triggering for you, please either proceed with caution or refrain from reading._

Miachel could feel himself getting nervous. He felt it before he even left his apartment, honestly. The entire morning had been spent anxiously waiting, pacing around his kitchen while the time ticked by ever so slowly. He had gone to get groceries earlier that morning, so that took up an hour or so, and he spent another few hours baking in earnest, but all he could do as he waited for the oven to do its magic was walk circles into his floor while holding his cat, Sarah-Belle, cradling her in his arms like a baby. As soon as that torturously long test of patience was over, he had immediately removed the finished product from the oven, packaged it all neatly in a plain Tupperware, and rushed out the door as quickly as he could. 

The apartment complex that he lived in didn’t get new residents often, since the building had a less-than-positive reputation, so it was always quite the news for Miachel when he learned that he would be gaining a neighbor. He would make sure to pick out a nice outfit for the day, before rushing to the store to buy the ingredients needed for cookies. He liked making something nice for newcomers to the complex. Most people seemed to steer clear of the place for reasons that Miachel didn’t really understand, so he liked to be as nice as he could be to the people that decided to give it a shot. So, it was no surprise that when he heard about someone moving into apartment number 703, he immediately got to work, heading to the grocery store that morning to kickstart the whole process. It took a few hours to do, but the payoff of getting to meet someone new to the complex was always worth it to him.

One of the more unsavory steps involved in the process of greeting new neighbors was the journey. See, Miachel lived on the second floor, and when someone moved into an apartment on the higher floors, it often took a fair amount of walking to get to their apartment. He would take one of the elevators, but they were all broken, and no one had come to repair them yet for the last six and a half months, so the only available option was the stairs. This currently resulted in a slow but steady march to the seventh floor and going up the flights upon flights of stairs ended up taking him the greater part of an hour to do. Finally, the tiring ascent eventually came to an end, and he found himself knocking on the door to apartment number 703, nervously waiting for a response. 

After a moment or two, the door opened, and in the doorway stood a blond-haired, grey-eyed, rather short man, who happily identified himself to Miachel as one Andrew Markwell, the complex’s newest resident. The two made pleasant, casual introductions to each other and ended up talking to one another for quite a while before Miachel eventually remembered to give Andrew the container of cookies. He accepted them gratefully, and, after polite farewells, headed back inside. The conversation overall had been lovely for Miachel; Andrew seemed like a genuine, down-to-earth guy that had a unique sense of humor, and they shared a fair number of things in common with each other. As he stood alone in the hallway and reflected on their exchange, he found himself having to blink away tears, a sickening guilt beginning to pool deep in his stomach. He slowly took a seat in the hallway and began one of his least favorite parts: waiting. 

While waiting wasn’t his least liked part of the process, he still heavily disliked it for a few different reasons. For one, he always got bored during it, and often resigned himself to counting ceiling tiles or carpet stains. Another thing about it was the silence. With nothing to do, sometimes for hours on end, the lack of noise or stimulus tended to lend itself to Miachel’s nerves getting the best of him; more than once the anxiety-prone individual had suffered from panic attacks while sitting on the hallway floor. But he persisted, leaning his head against the wall to make it easier to listen in to the happenings of 703. He could hear the gentle murmur of the tv, filling his mind with a fog of white noise. Andrew seemed to be relaxing, most likely on the couch or at a table. 

This went on for at least half an hour, only interrupted once by the tv pausing, before resuming as usual after a minute or so. Eventually, though, came the moment that Miachel had been waiting for, and he felt his stomach lurch from uneasiness. A large, heavy ‘thud’ resonated from within the apartment, a sound that Miachel knew from experience as one of a body hitting the floor beneath it. So, after taking a minute to collect himself, he slowly rose from his spot on the floor, attempting to swallow down the sickening dread that was beginning to fill him. 

Standing in front of the door to apartment 703, with his throat tightening and his hands shaking slightly from nerves, Miachel reached into his pocket and pulled out his keychain. He flicked through it anxiously, mentally noting each of the keys that it held and their individual uses. each of the keys was different from the others; the first was a shiny golden car key with a slight bend in it, the result of accidentally removing it from the ignition at an odd angle one too many times, the next, a small silver key that was covered in a light layer of rust, used to open his mail box on the first floor, and another still was a larger key that fit the lock to his apartment, its metal covered by a soft yellow color instead. 

Finally, he came to the fourth and last key on the ring: a key made of dulled brass. It's design was notably different from the three others before it, the unique pattern of notches along its metal were much more complex than a normal key. The unusual make of this final key was for one simple reason: it served as a master key to every apartment in the complex, and after a moment of staring at it, Miachel took a deep, shaky breath. Sensing that he was beginning to feel lightheaded, he tried making a weak attempt at stalling for time; he turned the key over in his hand, trying to distract himself by looking for scratches in the brass. The longer he waited, however, standing there alone in the silent hallway, the worse he felt. So, finally deciding to quit delaying the inevitable, he took the master key, swallowed the lump in his throat, and unlocked the door to apartment number 703. Pushing the door open quietly, the noise from the tv filled the apartment with the faint sound of indistinguishable chatter. Miachel walked into the space slowly, stepping around a box that had yet to be unpacked, and made his way further inside. 

Turning the corner, Miachel stopped dead in his tracks, taking in the sight in front of him for a few moments before stumbling backwards into the wall behind him and shakily sinking to the ground, quickly beginning to hyperventilate. There on the floor, splayed over the kitchen tile, was Andrew, and beside him was a plain white barstool, turned on its side after Andrew had seemingly fallen off of it. Although the scene was similar to many Miachel had seen before, it never ceased to terrify him. This one, however, was worse than its predecessors, and Miachel had to hurriedly turn his head to avoid ruining his clothes as his nausea overwhelmed him like a wave, quickly leading him to vomit onto the carpeted entrance to the apartment. Unlike the previous incidents, this one was more than a limp body lying on the ground or a couch. Unfortunately for Andrew, his choice of seating had resulted in him falling forwards off of his barstool, and the aftermath of this event was horrifyingly clear for Miachel to see. Under the spot where Andrew’s head had hit the ground, a large pool of blood quickly began to expand across the tile, and the injuries he sustained from the fall could be seen clearly, his broken nose and crushed skull seeming to stare at Miachel in betrayal with eyes that held only a dull, clouded gaze. 

Miachel sat by the entrance holding his knees to his chest, reduced to a shaky, sobbing mess from the horrifying sight sprawled across the floor in front of him. However, after a few moments, the scent of copper reached his nose, and the feeling of guilt-ridden, shock-filled, unrestrained horror in his stomach slowly began to turn into one of hunger. His body had decided for him that it was time to move on to the final step of the process, and the slight growling soon grew into an intense, disorienting desire to feed. After a few more moments of trembling panic from the guilt-wracked man, his body suddenly went entirely still. 

Within seconds, Miachel’s form began to shift, his bones snapping and flesh convulsing as he changed into a creature far more horrifying and eldritch in appearance, its multitude of eyes and rows of sharp teeth gleaming in unhinged anticipation at the sight of a fresh meal. Miachel himself did nothing to resist this transformation, too exhausted and emotionally drained to care enough about it or to make an effort to try and restrain himself. It was nothing new to him anyways, and days like this one had unfortunately become a part of the regular routine for him over the past eight months after a bizarre sequence of events had led to Miachel turning into something far from human. And after his form finished morphing into a horrible mess of eyes, teeth, and claws, he stood in the apartment for a moment, before lunging forwards to tear into the unmoving body on the floor. 

When Miachel was done eating, his body collapsed in on itself, once again changing into the tall, lanky, and awkward individual he usually was. With heavy, tired breaths, he took a moment to steady his shaking hands before he got to work on cleaning the now vacant apartment, wiping up any evidence of its now nonexistent owner. After he finished cleaning up, he left quietly, and made the slow journey back down to his own apartment on the second floor of the complex. He hated that this horrid routine had become so familiar to him, that taking the life of an innocent person was an unskippable part of ensuring his continued survival. 

Although he was deeply, truly disturbed and disgusted by the inhuman creature that he had become, Miachel was reluctant to end this vicious cycle, too afraid of dying to get rid of the main issue, and too scared of what would happen if he went too long without eating to try and starve himself. So, he began to work on distracting himself as soon as he got home, immediately focusing his efforts on finding Sarah-Belle, seating them both comfortably on the couch, and losing himself in a three-hour nature documentary about the ocean. His thoughts continued to go back to the events that had taken place only hours prior, however, and his guilt continued to eat away at his subconscious while he shakily struggled to avoid breaking down into sobs, horrified by himself and what he had become.


End file.
